


Blossom

by RhineGold



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, M/M, Melancholy, Offscreen character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:27:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhineGold/pseuds/RhineGold
Summary: Everett Young is a florist. It has been one year since he’s seen this man in his shop.It has been exactly six hours since he thought of him last.
Relationships: Nicholas Rush/Everett Young
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written based on a prompt from AutumnintheNorth.
> 
> AU - Everett Young is a florist. It has been one year since he’s seen this man in his shop. 
> 
> (Written in 2012)

It’s been exactly one year. 

One year since he’s seen this man, here in his shop, with his tweed coat and his messy hair and his nice wristwatch and worn leather satchel. 

It has been exactly six hours since he thought of him last. 

Each day that he opens the shop, he thinks the same thing. The same routine. Raise the grate, lock it in place. Unlock the door. Glance left, then right. And it has been one whole year since he has been there. 

Once, it was routine. He could set his clock by it (had set his clock by it once, if he was to be honest). He would arrive to open the shop, and the man would be waiting. Sometimes sitting, usually pacing, always smoking. 

“Hey, man, those’ll kill ya,” He’d said that first time. Or the first week. Or the first month. It was hard to remember when it had started, since it had always been a part of his routine for so very long. 

The man always seemed tired, burning with a frenetic energy that seemed destined to collapse inward before it could yield any real kind of result. Small talk happened, eventually, despite both of their seeming ineptitude on the subject. 

His name, his credit card revealed, the handful of times he’d forgotten his cash, was Nicholas. His occupation was ‘teacher’ - screamed by his clothes and present in the voice he would use to impart a bit of trivia or observation. The flowers (two bands of white heather, three lily of the valley sprigs and a single red rose) went to a wife. Gloria. 

The shop sat roughly 30 yards from the visitors entrance of the hospital. It was not complicated math. 

And then the visits stopped. 

For one whole year.

The hour is late. Visiting hours at the hospital are over, so he considers closing shop. The doorbell jangles and he looks up from his newspaper, both arms braced on the counter. 

The man’s expression is furtive, almost sheepish. His glasses are stuffed, one arm hooking, into the collar of his shirt, and his eyes are red, bloodshot. The tweed coat has become a faded leather one, patched at the elbows in a way that appears more necessary than aesthetic. The jeans are the same, and the satchel, banging soft and boneless against one hip. Empty. 

“Wow,” He says, despite himself, and the word might have been a declaration of war.

The man is turning then, snarling something too low and accented to make out, and he is around the counter in a heartbeat. He doesn’t mean to grab him by the wrist, but he is distracted from his common sense by desperation and then by how thin the man’s wrist is under his palm. 

“Wait!” He cries, unsure why he feels so desolate at the idea of him leaving. Will it be another year? If ever?

The man stops, hair in his face, and he sags suddenly, leaning against the door frame. “…three lily of the valley… the red rose…”

“And the white heather,” He finishes, nodding.

But the man is shaking his head. “No. Hyacinth. Purple.”

And there it is. 

~*~

He is making a mistake, he is certain. He is being unstable, being insane. This is not a good idea, nor is it a particularly intelligent one. But here he is. 

The grate took moments to pull down, the door seconds to lock. His beat up pickup managed to catch up to the white Prius and he follows it, knowing it is wrong and stupid and more than a little creepy. 

He parks across the street. 

It is well after dark when the man comes stumbling out of the gates, being escorted by a chagrined-looking groundskeeper. 

When the keeper returns back into the cemetery shutting the gates with a clang of such finality it makes the man jump, he is climbing out of his car. 

He stands there, eyes on the pavement, hands in his pocket. He feels the hard edge of his knife, the softness of an old receipt He feels both textures in the man’s shocked stare. 

“Why?” He asks finally, voice sounding ragged and he doesn’t have to look up to see how much more red his eyes are now. 

“I thought… You shouldn’t…” His voice died awkwardly, swept up in the wind and taken across the wrought iron fence to be buried with the rest of things. Looking up finally, he met that red-rimmed gaze at last. “Would you like dinner? And scotch? Or just the scotch?”

He looked at him, warily searching, considering every angle of every word and the planes of his open, honest face. 

“I like scotch,” He allowed finally. 

“Awesome. My treat." 

"I _like_ it,” He repeated, the emphasis odd until he realized it was a sort of teasing caution. 

“Me, too,” He answered. 

They leave the Prius at the gates of the cemetery. 

It’s been a year. That’s not a long time. But maybe it’ll be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still for Autumn lol.
> 
> AU - A coda to the tale of Everett the florist and the widower Nicholas.

It’s been a year since this started.

Since the man turned up at his shop for the first time in a year. Since the flowers, since the scotch, since the dinners. 

There have been more dinners. There has been a lot of scotch.

But no more flowers. Until now. 

It is the same as the last order and he doesn’t even really ask for it but he knows what he wants. This time they drive together. Nicholas is stone-faced behind the wheel of the Prius. He holds the flowers in the passenger seat and tries not study the other man’s face. 

They don’t speak sometimes. Nicholas spans a gulf that is deep and turbulent, where one side is an explosion of data and knowledge and the other a mine shaft of privacy and hidden things. Everett is more open on the surface but he is an ocean in his thoughts. 

Sometimes he worries this is too soon. Nicholas is a web of spider-cracks a shattered window inexpertly put back together. He’s no expert himself but he does what he can to smooth over the edges lest they cut, to push the planes back when they threaten to bow out and collapse. 

Gloria. 

She was young, he realizes dimly, not quite forty. Nicholas is not quite forty either, and the fact that he is younger than she was makes a great deal of sense suddenly. He senses the tears before he hears the first sob. 

His hand steals out, folding over the other man’s, wishing again he’d wear a pair of gloves. He can feel the cold seeping through the wool of his own, and he clutches tighter. Expectantly Nicholas is curling into him, face against his chest, and he holds him. One hand still interlaced with his, the other arm wrapping around his thin shoulders to pull him into something safe and warm. The sobs are crystalline harsh in his torso but light and delicate in his throat, like the bird he sometimes imagines him to be. He holds him while he cries. He is still holding him once he’s stopped. 

Nicholas says something quietly and he draws back a pace to hear him. 

“Scotch,” He says again. 

He nods.

They walk to the car, neither letting go of the other’s hand.

~*~

The responsible thing to do would be to say no. 

It wouldn’t be the kindest thing, but it would probably be the smartest. He tries to be smart for Nicholas. He knows Nicholas doesn’t care either way, doesn’t judge him by that litmus, doesn’t weigh his heart against a feather, but he feels the need to prove. But in this… in this, he goes with what he wants instead.

He follows the man inside. 

~*~

Nicholas is soft under him, the planes of his skin clothed in the soft flesh that perhaps only a teacher can develop, because he’s never found it anywhere else. He opens for him like a book, like a flower’s bud, like a man who is lonely and sad all the time. 

Everett is as gentle as he knows how to be, and Nicholas responds with a hunger he never anticipated. It’s warm and strong and firm and he treasures the sound Nicholas shudders into his ear as he comes to rest fully inside. This is a first for both of them, the start of a whole new world of benchmarks and anniversaries. 

It’s been one year since he realized he loved Nicholas Rush. And on this night, in his arms, marks the first time he tells him so.

**Author's Note:**

> I've heard a rumor that Tumblr is starting to delete blogs with pornographic fiction so I'm migrating my fiction blog's works here.


End file.
